Bring out your examples of sexist language aimed at parents please!

[TaurielTest]

Have you ever read a letter from school, a leaflet from your midwife, a timetable from your children's centre, or an article on a parenting website that you found sexist?

I know I have , but would really value other people's experiences. Please post here or send me a PM if you'd prefer.

This is for an upcoming workshop on sexist language that I'm helping to run - we'll be looking at a range of texts (others include song lyrics and advertising material) and discussing responses/challenges to them.

TIA

I have read examples of each that assume the primary caregiver is dw, but given I tend to read things like that as descriptive rather than normative, I'm afraid I don't really know what kind of examples you might be looking for.

Not a leaflet, but I've had the HV ring me to arrange DD's 8m check, then, when I explained that she'd be at home with her dad rather than me that day, HV said 'oh that's ok, as long as you leave her red book'. Wtf - like I was going to take her red book to work? Impressions confirmed by DP, as HV during visit said to DD 'and did your mummy remember to leave your red book?' Errrr how about treating DP like an equal co-parent who knows where we keep her medical records? And even though she had his number, HV rang me again a week later to follow up on a small issue with DD's eye. I passed the phone to DP, saying 'you'll have to speak to her dad as he's been looking after her'. Persistent refusal to accept DP as the parent to deal with.

At a taster session for dd's school, during a presentation to parents, we were told the marital and parental status of all female teachers, but not of any of the male ones.

We had a letter home referring to the new and female teacher by her first name, while the new headmaster and former teacher were referred to as Mr.

They also struggle massively with the fact I use my maiden name at work. My children are four years in and they still don't realise that very few of my colleagues would recognise my married name if they rang main reception asking for me. Every year I correct the contact form, every year it comes back with only my married name on. Only equalled by their astonishment that my husband was coming to pick an ill child up.

This song at a special Mother's Day assembly.

I remember seeing on buses a year or two ago around Reading, they had adverts i think maybe solicitors/accident clams and there was picture of woman appearing to be looking in her car mirror doing her makeup,I did later see male version tho but think they were on phone.

Cow and gate - 'Mums your doing great' - so dads and male same sex parents are doing rubbish?

A lot of literature in general not showing dads doing anything, I'm trying to remember if the Change 4 life leaflets about breast feeding, not blending McDonalds etc had any males in them.

I think the negative 'dads are useless' or lack of including males in information continues to foster the idea that childcare is a womans preserve and gives excuses for males to not take more part.

Thank you all - I'm going to use all these examples. Yikes, that Mother's day song!
The massive thing seems to be language that presumes that the primary parent is female (and that dads are bumbling incompetents if not entirely absent), with unequal treatment of e.g. teachers coming up too.

Some years ago I worked for a company that makes baby products. Part of my remit was anglicising the US catalogue for the UK. I changed every instance of "Mom" (barf) to Parent/Caregiver :) Unfortunately some product names even had "Mom" or "Mommy" (double barf) in them, not much I could do with them... I'm still in the same industry and it's rife...there's this huge assumption that only Mothers buy baby products and it's in shop names, product names and marketing messages.

Well, there's a popular website called Mumsnet for a start... Netmums... even Gurgle's tag line is "the website for modern mums", when really it provides parent advice..
I have babyfood that urges me to "Be the best mum you can be".
Countless playgroups call out "Mums and carers form a circle".
The most useful group exercise I have tried to highlight everyday gender inequality is to get a copy of the Daily Mail (or printout of the website) and swap female celebrities for 'similar' male celebrities (especially within the HI-lariously titled FEMAIL section). Then canvas the group for how newsworthy these similar, gender flipped stories and headlines would be.

When dd was invited for her BCG jab at 6 weeks, the letter said that mothers must attend.
I asked the admin person why and they said there are questions only a mother could answer.
So I went along, got chatting to the doc doing the jabs, and asked why this rule, given it hadn't been in place 3 years earlier. The only thing he could think of was they ask if the baby may have HIV, but if that hasn't been disclosed at antenatal appts, a mother is unlikely to suddenly mention it after birth. Didn't have the energy to take it further at the time.

Had a couple instances where despite forms for nursery and school asking for contact details and being supplied with info saying contact me 2 days a week and MrNC the others, they then put the numbers into a computer with no other info and then call me by default. Once. After that they move to always contacting MrNC, which is a slight improvement as at least he can receive phone calls at work.